


Time and Tide Flow Wide

by orphan_account



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Alternate Universe - Star Trek Fusion, M/M, no prior knowledge required
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-11
Updated: 2019-04-29
Packaged: 2020-01-11 19:57:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18431030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: In the Demilitarized Zone, the Maquis and the Bajora desire only freedom from Cardassia and the Federation.Interplanetary politics! Space piracy! Interstellar warfare! Interspecies romance!





	1. The end

**Author's Note:**

  * For [elliephant](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elliephant/gifts).



_2375: Aboard a Cardassian warship._

 

The weightless sensation of free-falling is, objectively, funny. Peculiar in the sense that it is not what one expects, intuitively. James is not immune to humor, but anybody and anything had to try goddamn hard to get a laugh out of him. Not even a near half-decade on a mixed colony could override years of unsmiling, oppressively systematic rearing.

He’s going to die in a warship run aground, engulfed in flames.

Something about this must be objectively comical. He cannot seem to figure out what, just yet.

When he chokes out a laugh, he supposes it must be delirium for lack of oxygen. The laugh comes up with a bit of blood. He clutches uselessly at the gash just below his ribs. He is falling through a massive cruiser tilted to its side, and he cannot turn his head to look down, but he imagines he has a few seconds still. From the viewport topside, unblinking stars steadily shrink down to pinpricks of light.

Everywhere around him, the view fuzzes into nauseating arpeggios of color, internecine clashes of orange and purple as overwhelming as the morning sky on his moonless home.

It’s a long way down.

All he wants to do is give in to his exhaustion.

Then, just as suddenly as it had begun, the falling stops.

Something catches James from behind and tosses him aloft. He lands with a dull thud, sliding along a protruding cantilever snapped half in the chaos. He clambers upward the beam, getting his bearings, heedless of the bleeding in his side and his ragged breathing. There is the crush of smoke and heat seeping into the metal beam—his eyes water and his hands and legs burn. It takes the full force of his effort for James to even get up. Behind him, heavy steps draw closer.

He turns to face his pursuer. Unfeeling eyes stare back at him, clear as the sea, depthless as the abyss. Black as the frontier, strange and unfathomable. James feels his throat close as if bound to a noose, the cantilever creaking out like a plank over water.

At the very least, this ship is going down with him. He’s done what he came here to do.

As the wreckage around them swells to a glorious crescendo, fatigue grinds James down like a crashing tide.

 

 


	2. All astir

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Five years before the wreck

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Plenty of liberties have been taken to make this friendly to any Black Sails fan with no prior knowledge of Star Trek. For the pedants out there: inaccuracies are mostly intentional.
> 
> Refer to end notes for Star Trek terms introduced in this chapter.

_2370: Five years before the wreck._

 

The pylons are difficult to ignore.

Peering out of the perfectly round porthole of his clinically white, thoroughly lit, sensibly austere quarters aboard the USS Scarborough, Lieutenant Commander James McGraw assesses his next port of call, and cannot shake the thought that, as far as first impressions go, _it’s a damn ugly sight_. Federation starbase Deep Space Nine is an ever-spinning chrome wheel, dark and bedecked with portentous trappings—sharp teeth that stretch up, primed and hostile as a gaping maw. A night terror designed to keep away any vessel that might otherwise see fit to dock.

Only three years ago, the base was still known as Terok Nor, a slave labor camp under Cardassian control. Now, the station only _looks_  Cardassian. It is functionally Federation, for all intents and purposes. Its menacing face is no longer any cause to heap opprobrium.

There’s no sense in assigning human features to a neutral, lifeless thing.  _No logic._

His combadge vibrates. The overhead system relays its announcement: “ _Point-zero-zero-twenty-two AUs to arrival. USS Scarborough dropping out of warp. All personnel scheduled to disembark at starbase Deep Space Nine, please proceed to docking bay 6A.”_ The notice repeats. A buzz rings through the speakers.

James takes a final look at the porthole. Those pylons are getting even closer. A dragon creeping in the dark.

He crosses the perfectly white, featureless floor of his quarters, marching with wide, purposeful strides down the perfectly smooth, perfectly bare hall to the turbolift, the hyperbaric pressure of the chute matching the sensation upon his breast, all the way to the port. The engine thrumming dulls the farther along the jetty, but his hands cannot seem to cease in their shaking, practically infrasonic in its fineness, uneasy all the same.

Categorically, it cannot be fear that he feels. It is only a station, after all.

It’s the bloody assignment.

After months of turmoil over an unsettled territorial dispute over Dorvan V in the Demilitarized Zone—dubbed New Providence by its settlers— the sector's colonists (a mix of separatists, defectors, refugees; Terran, Bajora, Klingon, Andorian, Kelpien, and a few others) have forcefully demanded independence from the colonist designs of the Cardassian Union as well as intermittent involvement from the Federation. A Vulcan representative in the Cabinet now endeavors to devise a solution, and in need of a military counsel to apply Starfleet’s tactical expertise, James has been assigned liaison to this upstart politician.

Well, that and—as per the Admiral’s briefing—the minister, being young, green and self-righteous, is prone to radicalism and pipe dreams, unbefitting of both Federation ministerial duties and as a representative of a culture committed to the civilized principles of logic. All James has to do is report back to the Admiral. Be their eyes and ears. Provide relevant counsel and curb outlandish terms. Bureaucratic form-filling on both ends; as straightforward and droll as these sorts of duties can be.

Yet James cannot help but feel that something is amiss.

He has made his inquiries about the proposal, studied the case from every angle, inductively, deductively, minutiae to gestalt. It seemed to be reasonable in theory, if painfully naive. The whole proposal is premised on the expectation that both the Federation and the Cardassians would consent to grant independence to the settlers on the DMZ on the basis of, for all intents and purposes, _the moral good._

A moral argument  _should_  be logical. Had the universe worked as predictably as it did in theory, it would be.

He takes a tour around the station’s promenade, letting the novel sights and sensations drown out the rising chorus of disquietude settling in him.

Along the promenade, life rolls in grand waves, all astir.

As far as Federation stations go, DS9 follows most conventions. That is, apart from some superficial features—distracting, but superficial all the same. For one, the whole station certainly  _smells_ differently. The seemingly-infinite diversity of the Federation means, in hubs as concentrated as spaceports, a many different species will emit countless bodily secretions. A spectrum of odors is hence unavoidable. However, measures are taken to mask it: an extensive filtering system and mandatory sterilization upon alighting, usually. Here, there seems to be a fine sheen of _everything_  hanging just over one's nose. And the smell of _everything_ is, unequivocally, horrid. Visually, the station is dour and uninviting. The low light and dull ochre tone, as the exterior pylons, are inherited from the station’s Cardassian makings. It casts a pall gloom over the whole place, a permanent reminder of its unconscionable miseries. James walks by an open electrical pit, an inoperable lift, and hears a prank announcement broadcast out of the station’s overhead speakers—a  _“your mom”_ joke, of all things.Only minutes later, warnings regarding malfunctioning replicators and life support systems is broadcast. “ _Avoid these sectors or risk certain death_ ,” the announcer relays mundanely, as if it were a usual inconvenience.

Just another day at the station.

All in all, DS9 is a disaster. An endless surf of floundering bodies blustering about in their gloomy wreck at the edge of space.

He finds the minister waiting in the middle of the promenade, hands clasped primly behind, observing the goings-on about the station. His fair hair is in need of a trim, his modest civilian robe makes him almost indistinguishable from the rabble. As far as James is aware, the man he is to assist had been the one to elect this station as the site to conduct negotiations. Perhaps he truly is a cause for concern.

“Minister,” James greets.

The Vulcan nods in acknowledgement. “Lieutenant Commander McGraw,” he simply says. The Minister gives James the once-over in the manner that seems to bring to bear the full force of his regard. Suddenly, James becomes all too conscious of an itch in his back.

Without another word, the man walks, and James merely follows.

“I took the liberty of looking up your record,” the man says. “A Terran orphan raised by a Vulcan Admiral, graduated at the top of your class at the Science Academy, poised for a coveted position with the Expeditionary Group. And yet you ended up at Starfleet instead.” There’s a tilt to the tail of that last sentence, as interrogative as it is a simple statement of fact.

“Is there a problem?”

“The VSA is expressly a training institute specifically for the Expeditionary Group. Why choose Starfleet when the more suitable option presented itself with no barriers to entry? It is an illogical decision, is it not?”

James stops in his tracks. It is not something he has truly given much thought. Things merely happened to work a certain way that he did not question. The truth is that other people chose for him. What he says, instead, is: “perhaps no amount of Vulcan education can make me fully immune to human error.”

The Minister smiles at that, wide and sincere and unbecoming of him. “Call me Tomas, Lieutenant,” he says, with a warmth to his tone that only puzzles James. Like a wrinkle he feels compelled to reach out and smoothen to a perfect stiffness.

Tomas straightens his back and gestures as if to vouchsafe a message from the divine. “The work we are about to undertake is of the utmost importance,” he says. “I should hope that you realize that.”

The man might be unusually expressive for a Vulcan, but James is certain that he’s just as self-important as the worst of them.

 

* * *

 

“You don’t miss your water till the well runs dry,” Tomas muses.

A holographic rendering of New Providence floats between them, longitudinal arcs glowing blue, casting a faint halation over the room. Clear as a Terran daytime sky, striking as its vast seas.

“Beg your pardon?” McGraw looks up from the schematics laid out on the table, mouth pressed in a firm line, posture stiff, arms crossed, touching nothing. His long red hair is a shock of color against the soft light. A neat thumb traces idly at the hem of his slightly open collar.

It is a distracting sight.

Tomas turns away.

“Just something from an old song. A Human song. I assumed you might recognize it.”

McGraw raises a single brow, as humorless as ever. It is nearly impossible to get any other reaction out of the man. He bows his head down to resume his work. And then there is the shuffling of PADDs, the tapping of a boot heel by the table’s legs. Prevaricating, as one does in an uncomfortable situation. More than anything else, McGraw seems to be in an enduring state of discomfort, the doxological rock that he is.

“You think the issue is merely a matter of scarcity,” he says, without looking up.

“I should think the root cause of this conflict obvious.” With a gesture, the holograph spins. The topological curves of the Nassau colony facing Tomas. “It is easy to be a saint in paradise, Lieutenant, but these people do not live in paradise. The attacks are but a symptom of a more insidious issue.”

“The Maquis were once part of the Federation before turning traitor. It cannot be as simple as a matter of resources.” McGraw holds his gaze eye to eye, carving through the floating blue planet, cutting as a lathe.

“Despite the treaty, these civilians face the constant threat of annexation. Economic sanctions from Federation sovereignties and attacks from Cardassian colonies have cornered its people into desperation. The Maquis attack our ships because they feel they have no other option than to steal and retaliate.”

“Those are the risks they knowingly took when they separated,” McGraw counters, voice raised, eyes wild.

Between them, the blue lines of New Providence glow with endless potential. Tomas’s eyes trace the path charting the unbroken stretch of Nassau’s coast. Life-bearing planets are a rarity. Such wondrous, precious things.

“People do not simply relinquish the comforts to which they have become accustomed for illogical reasons,” he says quietly.

McGraw says nothing.

“Excuse me,” Tomas says. “I will need some time to think.” He exits the room.

He is not upset. He is only stuck. If he cannot even convince his own liaison—a reasonable man, sharp, if a little hardheaded, but reasonable nonetheless—to see the merits of this proposal, it might as well be dead in the water.

He needs a break.

He wants a distraction.

He takes a walk.

Tomas meanders aimlessly, crossing the station’s levels and levels of rings, reaching the upper level of the promenade. From the portholes, the glittering expanse beckons for an audience. Naturally, he cannot help but oblige. He sees the rising pylons curving out the edge of the wheels like a cutlass over a great sheet of black. Below, a flurry of activity rolls as surely as the changing tides. Life goes on, as it always does. This place has endured so much pain. Built expressly for the ultra-efficient, unimaginably brutal extraction of labor, now thriving with life. Sublime, indefatigable, defiantly free.

Hard-won victories are always bittersweet, but often beautiful in the unfolding.

From behind, he hears a cough as if to clear one’s throat. McGraw steps to the railing, standing beside Tomas with arms crossed, feet firm, head bowed, touching nothing. His quiet steps and steady gaze give nothing away, his comportment as carefully composed as ever.

“Sir, perhaps it would be best to request for a liaison more sympathetic to your views,” McGraw says. “I could advise the Admiral to send for someone else.”

Suddenly, a yelp comes from afar. For a moment, they are both distracted.

They watch the commotion developing below deck. A scuffle in the Ferengi establishment, currently blockaded by a picketing line. The cooks and servers are chanting for a worker’s union. A line-crossing Gallamite is thrown across by a Klingon in red uniform. McGraw winces as the Gallamite's transparent head thuds on the chrome pillar, viscera swinging in the impact.

Tomas turns to McGraw. “Belay that, officer. It wouldn’t do to preach to the choir, now would it?” He says.

There creeps the faintest hint of a smile up that mirthless officer’s mouth, for a moment freed from his habitual scowling. A neat thumb traces at the hem of a braided sleeve, going back and forth in a clean path. It is a distracting sight. 

“If that’s what you prefer, sir,” McGraw says.

They watch the commotion play out before resuming their work. The picketing workers stir the rest of the station to song.

 

 

* * *

 

The days wear on in a flurry of endless debate, negotiation, revision and refinement, the feverish updraft of questions swelling into a cresting wave of progress. They were standing on the precipice of a great new thing—uncharted waters, equally exhilarating and frightening, as all worthy mysteries were. James could feel the racing current of their determination carrying them out into a new age. He and the Minister—a constant companion, a bosom friend—do not yet see eye-to-eye but any quarrel only served to reinforce their case. Any spirited attempts at debate only strengthened their resolve and broke open revelations. There is an old Terran saying about sailing too close to the wind, but James is learning all too quickly that Tomas has never been one for caution.

The only matter of dispute is the civilian settlement on the Cardassian side of the border, the outpost of the Maquis.

“Have you ever spoken with any Cardassian about the motion to pay reparations for their occupation of Bajor?” James asks, as they share a meal in the Replimat. He stares down at his cup of black coffee, absently pushing a small whirlpool with his spoon.

“I suppose some of them find the matter to be a moot point?”

“Plenty of Guls and Legates in office will insist that the annexation was a mutually beneficial period. Plenty still defend that the Bajora would not have enjoyed the sophisticated technology necessary to thrust them into the interstellar age, were it not for the occupation.”

Tomas pushes his salad around with a fork. “That’s no justification for unspeakable atrocities,” he says quietly.

“You’ll have an impossible time convincing anybody of the merits of reparations when your audience has no compunction to subjugate indiscriminately, so long as they can rationalize it.”

“You think the Cardassians will refuse to recognize any independence granted to the pirates?”

James blinks at that. “Pirates?” He remarks, incredulously.“You’ve been reading too much Human literature, sir.” He gestures to a neighboring table taken by Bajora in militia uniform. “Look over there. To Bajor, the militia are freedom fighters. To the Federation and Cardassia alike, they’re terrorists.”

Tomas turns to the group. They are splitting rolls of hasperat among the four of them. One offers the rest a bottle of rootbeer, to jeers and boos from his comrades.

“And what do you think?” Tomas asks.

If simple logic were to suffice, then the conclusion should be clear: _a terrorist is a terrorist is a terrorist is a terrorist._ But logic, James must concede, rarely ever satisfies in these matters.

“I think they did what they had to do,” he answers.

James watches the people in the group pour each other cups of spring wine. They are all each wearing their religious earrings. One carries a string of prayer beads in her hand. The youngest of them has a facial tattoo. He’s seen Bajora in Starfleet acquiesce to uniform regulation. These militia members wear their faith freely.

A Human and Ferengi boy join the group, happily relieving them of their root beer. They break more hasperat for the boys. The Human comes back from the replicator with ice cream, pouring the rootbeer over the cup. He shows it off to the one with the tattoo, who examines it with such barefaced delight.

After their meal, James excuses himself. Tomas stays behind, mentioning something about a friend. As James exits to the promenade, he spots someone joining Tomas from the corner of the Replimat. A Trill in lavender robes with hair pinned back, revealing rivulets of black spots snaking down from temples, to cheeks, to neck. She greets Tomas enthusiastically, then turns and spots James, giving him a knowing smile before directing her attention back to her companion.

James hurries back to their study, uncertain of what to make of that.

Had she been watching them all that time?

An unnameable dread hounds him for the rest of the day.

Hours later, at the end of their session, he finds the Trill again in the promenade, walking out of the tailor’s shop. She motions for him to join her, and he obliges.

“Lieutenant McGraw,” she says, holding out her hand. “I’m Miranda, an old friend of Tomas'.”

James gapes at her spotted hand for a breath, before taking it. He shakes it stiffly, placing his hands back firmly to his sides after the awkward business is over.

Miranda laughs, shaking her head. “My apologies, it’s a human gesture but I’d forgotten, Tomas mentioned you were mostly raised on Vulcan. This would have been rather indiscreet for them.” She places her hands to her chest and bows lowly, a Trill expression of apology. Then, with a tilt of her head, she leads, and they walk.

“How do you feel about granting the Maquis independence?” She asks.

“I think the Minister is being naive if he assumes that all their problems will be solved simply by granting them independence.”

Miranda looks at him, gaze prying, aglow. “But is it the right thing to do?” She asks.

James stops in his tracks, for a beat.

“I think so,” he says. “Yes. Yes, it is the right thing to do.”

They round the corner and make their way to the upper deck, where ovoid portholes line the high chrome walls. Outside, the networks of outer rings spin out, the tips of pylons crackle with faint bursts of electricity. Runabouts and freighter ships come and go through the terminals.

Miranda turns from the view outside to James, smiling that knowing smile once more. “Tomas has always been full of grand ideas,” she says. “He's always been inquisitive, even for a Vulcan. Always questioning the structure of things. Even the principles of logic couldn’t get past him. _By what standards can we apply logic to a question of ethics?_  Those were the sorts of things that were always on his mind, in our youth. On Vulcan, they called him mad. Just as absurd to Trill and Humans.”

James clears his throat. “If I may speak freely? Someone ought to rein him in,” he says.

That knowing smile shifts to something more incredulous. “Does it unnerve you?”

“Respectfully, the man is too willing to throw away his entire life for a crusade. He can be reasoned with, but on the whole he is immovable.”

Miranda turns away to watch the view once more. “What do you believe in, Lieutenant?”

Outside, the wheels turn. The spangled expanse blinks in time with the lights across the station. More ships pass through. Life on the station never ceases, not even for a moment.

“All I care about is doing the right thing,” James answers confidently.

He cannot see her face, but he is certain that her mouth must quirk up in that selfsame expression. She sighs and says, with a tone that seems to carry a chorus of other voices, “and can you distinguish doing the right thing from simply doing what you’re told?”

 

* * *

 

 

The lights in the room are brighter than usual.

Legates and Admirals sit across each other at a long table, all eyes rapt at the holographic map of the Demilitarized Zone.

Tomas makes his case, voice grave, tone controlled, gaze steady and certain, gesturing confidently with every didactic bone in his body. His audience becomes visibly restless in their seats. A Legate rises to protest. Tomas graciously maintains decorum, pushing his displeasure down with the spring coil of his composure. Beside him, James stands still, hands firmly to his side, one fist clenched as if to subtly warn that he— _they_ —will brook no objections. His mouth is pressed to a thin line, meeting the Legate’s furious gaze with complete equanimity.

They have yet to discuss the matter of the Maquis.

The hologram magnifies New Providence, the outpost of the insurgents.

They discuss the terms. The proposed solutions. The matter of reparations for the sanctions posed by the Federation, and attempts at sabotage by the Cardassian Union.

It is then that the room truly shifts.

Admirals Satie and Hennessy raise their voices. Legates Damar and Woodes heap their opprobrium high.

Tomas can feel his disdain rising up de profundis. How dare they not see that they are all of them, each one in this room, guilty of crimes for which innocent civilians have had to suffer? How dare they stand there and mount the horrors they’ve allowed on the basis of the needs of the many?

But he will not raise his voice. He will not allow them to see him unmade. He is calm and he is certain and he is correct. His terms, his solutions, are underpinned by fact. The axis of his entire self has only ever torqued to the fulcrum of logic. He is not diminished by emotion, but he will not allow them any room to make the argument that he is _too emotional._

He’s already endured more than a lifetime’s worth of that.

This is the right thing to do. They must see that. _They have to see that._

One of the Legates dismisses his entire proposal as a product of Vulcan condescension.

Tomas will _not_ raise his voice.

In the end, it is James who does, coming to his defense. His tone is heated, his words are sharp, his eyes flare virescent. He takes their own words and runs it through the finest sieve, throwing back the fundamental substance of their reasoning at each and every single one of them.

He implores them to understand that in times of war, solidarity is of the essence.

Then he looks at Tomas with shining eyes, reverent and restorative. Somewhere in the growing dark within Tomas, a lone ribbon of light flickers out to rejoice.

One by one the representatives leave, incensed.

James turns to Tomas again, shining eyes still, now downcast and apologetic. Beseeching. He looks away and around, up at the ceiling, to the corner and out the window, making as if to cast around for a tether. His hands are shaking at his sides.

“Well, that was inappropriate,” James mutters, a little facetiously.

“James…”

When Tomas reaches out to him, he flinches.

James lets out a soft laugh, running a hand up his face and through his tied hair. His shoulders sag. Without looking at Tomas, he says, “I couldn’t just stand there and let them say whatever they’d like about you. Especially not when those words are untrue.”

When he turns to face Tomas, his expression has shifted. His eyes are soft, mouth slightly agape as if to speak, yet still too uncertain. He is always so cautious. To watch him be moved to passion is breathtaking—terrible and beautiful to behold.

Tomas finds that he is unable to will any words to come.

For a moment, neither move. They stay there, holding each other's gaze eye-to-eye, as if touching and not touching. 

Tomas lays a hand on James' shoulder.

James takes that hand and clasps it in his own, planting a kiss to the back, and another to the fingertips. An archaic Human gesture; a Vulcan kiss to Human lips.

Tomas moves closer.

When their mouths meet, the air stills. As if the station’s wheels stop in their orbit. As if its chassis has cracked. As if they are adrift in the dark, amongst the unblinking lights, caught in the vacuum of space.

Free as the stars. Doomed as the unmoored.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Terms introduced in this chapter**
> 
>   * United Federation: An interstellar alliance of planets governed under one central government. Among its founding members are Humans and Vulcans.
>   * Vulcan: A green-blooded humanoid species known for its stoic adherence to logic. They resemble humans, with pointy ears.
>   * Cardassian: A lizard-like humanoid species known for its military government’s ruthless conquest of planets. They are gray-scaled, dark-haired, and long-necked.
>   * Bajora: A humanoid species with a rich cultural history, recently liberated from centuries of Cardassian occupation. They resemble humans, with ridged noses.
>   * Trill: A humanoid species with a tradition of coexisting with a symbiotic organism, synthesizing multiple histories and personalities into one host. They resemble humans with spotted skin.
>   * Deep Space Nine (DS9): A Federation starbase strategically located beside a wormhole, Bajor, the Cardassian border and the Demilitarized Zone. Formerly a Cardassian slave labor camp.
>   * Demilitarized Zone (DMZ): A buffer zone barred from military activity, drawn between Federation and Cardassian borders following an armistice. Its planets have been colonized by independent civilian settlers. Frequently besieged by small-scale warfare between the settlers and Cardassia.
>   * Maquis: Federation colonists in the DMZ engaging in armed struggle against Cardassian control.
> 

> 
> **Other notes**
> 
>   * A lot of the set-up is derivative (for both Black Sails and Star Trek) but what’s the point of writing a sci-fi AU that doesn’t take advantage of all the genre has to offer, right? Expect the story to break off course after the first few chapters.
>   * The backstory of a human raised by Vulcans is both inspired by Michael Burnham from DIS and written to incorporate the same themes interrogating the notion of the civilized/savages through the lens of the logic/emotion dichotomy. I know it’s gauche to point out your own themes, but here I am, pointing out the themes anyway.
>   * Nassau is on Dorvan V, the planet at the center of the dispute in TNG’s Journey’s End.
>   * “Tomas" doesn’t really follow any of the set naming conventions for Vulcans, but in my defense neither does “Stonn” or “Tuvok.”
>   * The song Tomas refers to is the 1960s William Bell blues classic: [“You Don’t Miss Your Water”](https://youtu.be/eJPAwKPD9KU)
>   * The line “it is easy to be a saint in paradise,” is said by Benjamin Sisko in the DS9 episode “The Maquis I.”
>   * Rootbeer has, in a sense, become a stand-in for assimilation to human culture, in Star Trek.
> 



	3. No more my splintered heart and maddened hand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trade-offs are made.

Tomas lies back in bed, stretching out to luxuriate in the view before him. His fingers lightly trace the alluvial planes of a naked back, freckles dusting rosy Human skin grown used to the harsh Vulcan sun. He threads his fingers through soft twines of bright red hair and cannot help but think of the drooping willows, the racing rivers, the cascading sands of the planet he’d left behind in his youth.

He’d delighted in those grand wonders, awash with such a splendour and fury that possessed him of sentiments that sweeping vistas—sublimely expressive though they were—could never quite return. Grains of sand could not feel as breathing, hungering creatures do, but he was perfectly satisfied to bask.

His lover stirs from his slumber, turning gracefully under the sheets so that they lie face-to-face. Tomas raises two fingers to trace those smiling lips, as has been his habit these past mornings. Mornings flush with such a warmth he’d been bereft of, quite possibly all his life—gentle yet consuming, a quickening and a calm seizing him all at once. May he never tire of these intimate, wordless conversations, spoken only with the tangling of limbs, the sliding of skin, the careful exploration of hands and mouths.

James shifts to lay astride him. His lips travel from atop a brow, the tip of a nose, cheeks, jaw, neck, and downward—intent on leaving no surface unmapped. Determined to make the most of these last precious mornings before he sets sail. A three-month survey of New Providence. They are so close to the victory they’d set out to achieve.

Tomas feels a melting in him. He imagines his heart asunder, fractured into two—as hearts anatomically cannot—a piece of it stolen by the enterprising thief before him. All roguish charm and fine, nimble hands, skillful in their searching and taking, compelling him to yield to no more than small, uncomplicated gestures. Soft touches burdened with the weight of grander oaths.

“You were sent to me,” Tomas breathes, blissfully afloat in a daze. To exclaim such a mundane observation with the thrill of revelation demanded some explaining. Or, at least, James throws him a look that tells him so. “It almost makes me believe in luck.”

His lover watches him speak with an expression that seems to bear the full weight of his intense regard. 

“The choice was obvious to Starfleet. On paper, we had similar upbringings.” James responds, almost blankly. “Vulcan education.”

“And not Vulcan enough?” Among other things.

Those virescent eyes hold his gaze, full and intense, and ever forlorn, abruptly turning away. 

“Even the most commonplace tasks were a challenge. I felt as if I had to sprint just to march along the path that everybody else naturally fell into step with. I hadn’t been the only one who was different, but somehow it felt as if I had been the only one incapable of adjusting.”

Tomas curls a palm over his lover’s cheek, but James keeps his gaze directed elsewhere.

“Had we met—” 

“It is of no use to dwell on what cannot be undone. Illogical, wouldn’t you think so?” 

Tomas keeps his torpid reassurances to himself. 

They lie there, in silence, staring up at the ceiling. Its low lights fuzz out of a mesh, perfectly portioned lines of steel crossing and intersecting in perfectly portioned sections, casting square patches of white over the room. Tomas looks at the ceiling beseechingly. The ceiling, in its blankness, can offer him no such relief. 

He could almost feel the station spinning. 

And there, on tangled in their shared bed, over the sheets and under the lights, James turns to him, taking one hand to line up with his, palm-to-palm. 

“For what it’s worth, while I don’t believe it possible for any thing or being to conspire our meeting,” James says, fingers folding and squeezing the hand held in his own. “You almost make me believe in miracles.”

 

* * *

 

The turnover from DS9’s Alpha to Beta shift is often marked by, of all things, a tempest erupting in the Ferengi establishment. Gambling ruffians gather round the dabo wheels, yelping over a froth of animated conversation exchanged through exuberant chatter or the signing of hands and heads. There is the glaze of smoke and the sparkle of synthale, the zip of flung darts and the ticking of chips and checker pieces, while overhead the sound of an El’Aurian crooner spills over the riot. The scent of overheated electrical wiring wafts in knots, tangling with a mix of perfumes to coat the whole place with a faint oily sheen.

A safety alarm should have gone off by now. James looks around and spots the station’s Chief Engineer over the darting booth. Well, as long as they think this is all fine. He winds up the central spiral staircase, hoping to find lees of tranquility somewhere in the upper level. He spots Admiral Hennessy already waiting in one of the corner booths, one hand nursing a half-drunk flute of kanar, looking downward at the goings-on. Another full flute sits beside it, bubbling bright blue.

When James joins him, the Hennessy only nods in acknowledgement. “That dabo wheel is rigged,” the Admiral mutters.

James looks down at the gamblers and shrugs. “There’s been talk of arms deals being conducted in the holodecks,” he simply responds. Underhanded dealings are more or less inalienable to any Ferengi business, yet the station’s Commander had been the one to insist that the place was necessary in order for DS9 to flourish. 

Hennessy winces at that. “And to think, this place is under Starfleet jurisdiction.”

“Only partially, sir.”

“And thankfully so. One wonders what havoc this station could wreak were it completely held by the Bajora.” Hennessy lifts up his flute as if to take a sip, wrinkles his nose at the bright blue drink, and sets it back down.

James juts his chin at the kanar. “I wasn’t aware you had a taste for Cardassian liquor.”

“Ah, well. Not quite.” Hennessy’s smile is tight, discomfited. “I’ll have to get used to it the more deals we make with the Union. Tradition for their kind to seal agreements with drink.” He slides the other glass towards James. “You’re going to have to get used to it too.” 

In the glass, the liquid bubbles, practically aglow with a chemical gleam. James feels the creeping of a familiar dread, the same feeling that overcame him upon seeing DS9’s arching pylons. 

He takes the glass and knocks back its contents in one drink.

“This mission on Dorvan V,” Hennessy says, steepling his fingers.“I’m sure you’re aware that nothing will come of it.” 

James stares at the empy glass. The kanar sinks in all too quickly, flaring in his temples. He stills the hand gripping the stem. Hennessy’s expression is unreadable.

“Sir?”

“Oh, you didn’t really think the Maquis could be allowed to continue, did you?”

“This is not just about the Maquis, sir.”

Hennessy rubs a hand over his face, shaking his head. He looks at James as if he were dealing with a restive child. “McGraw, let me make this perfectly clear: Dorvan V is on the Cardassian side of the DMZ. No historical precedence, no theoretical models, no bloody moral arguments can ever challenge that. The Cardassians are not willing to budge on the territories they’ve lain claim to, not even if their own people should ever choose to defect to the damn place, for whatever reason. If Starfleet and the Federation were to aid the Maquis in any way, our treaty with the Cardassians would be violated. There is a war going on. We’re going to need as many allies as we can get. You know this. You practically yelled it at us and the Legates.”

“They’re not all Maquis.”

“And yet the settlers find those insurgents to be an indispensable part of the community. However, should that issue go away quietly…”

“You can’t be serious.”

Hennessy responds with no more than a single raised brow.

Below, a chorus of voices shout “dabo!” The crooner shifts to a brighter melody, deep voice gliding to the shimmering of strings and a rapid percussive beat. The clatter of cutlery and clinking glasses, the tireless pop and hiss of the tap, and the steady rise of chatter climb all the way to the upper deck, folding together into a polyphonic aria of static noise. 

Hennessy signals to a passing waiter, lifting up his empty glass. Without looking at James, he says, “Starfleet will still have you go to the Nassau outpost to make contact with the Maquis. Intercept their operations and report to us. Curb the attacks. Destabilize their base.”

“I cannot—” 

Hennessy holds a hand up. “I am not finished,” he spits out. Lines of red score the white of his eyes. “You will proceed as the people of New Providence expect. Your crew will conduct the operations to see to the civilians’ needs. They can expect to receive supplies that will sustain them, but none that will arm them. Your crew will help those people thrive. But you will be there to take care of the Maquis issue. Once that goes away, the Cardassians have promised give our people a wide berth.”

The Ferengi waiter returns and refills their glasses. James watches it pour slowly, sloshing thickly as it lands.

“And if I refuse?”

“There are always other candidates. This operation will happen either way1, with or without your involvement.”

James looks at the glass, its contents almost flickering like fire. He thinks of a blue holographic map, in a study. A man on the other side of it imploring him to see reason. 

Kanar never seems to go down smoothly.

 

* * *

 

There is a large plant in Miranda’s quarters. That, or a small slumbering beast. A luminous amber sphere covered in translucent fuzz. White blossoms sprout from its head, a nest of fallen petals settling at its feet, curled up into dried flakes of mossy brown. The thing pulsates as most creatures breathe, its fuzz sharpening into needles as it expands, softening as it compresses, again and again. It is almost hypnotic. Perhaps this is one of those Kelpien succulents with psychedelic qualities. As it wheezes, it sputters. Sap flies out in droplets, like spittle.

“Miranda, I’m no botanist, but I’m almost certain your pet is dying,” Tomas says.

From across the room, Miranda walks up to the plant, prodding it with a small comb fished out of her pocket. The plant does not respond. “It’s not dying, it’s…” she says, twirling the comb in a searching manner. “It must be upset.”

“Whatever could have upset it?”

“I’m not certain, yet. When the station’s tailor gifted it to me, he’d mentioned it would be prone to phases of melancholy.”

“The Cardassian tailor?” It was a rhetorical question. The station had only one tailor, who’d been exiled from Cardassia four years prior.

Anyone who’d ever set foot on DS9 would have been entreated to at least one of the many whispers regarding the nature of his sentence. A spy for the Cardassian Union’s clandestine operations under the Obsidian Order, turned traitor. A confidante of the Castellan who sold sensitive information to Starfleet, hoping to incite a coup. A thief, a liar, a war criminal. A monster.

Tomas watches the creature on Miranda’s desk struggle to breathe, not bothering to conceal his growing suspicion.

Miranda runs the comb across the creature’s surface. Suddenly, it seems to purr in contentment, if flora were capable of such expressions. “Yes. Got a bit of a green thumb, that one.”

“Fascinating,” Tomas mutters. “I’ve been told the Obsidian Order breeds synthetic cultivars to develop a variety of poisons.”

Miranda only groans in the manner of a long-suffering wife. “Oh, please, not you too. Just because the man is a Cardassian! Those are just rumors,” she huffs, still absorbed in her combing. “You’d get along with him, his taste in literature is quite eclectic. Reads plenty of Human novels to please his new Starfleet friends.”

Uninterested in acknowledging the ridiculous comparison, Tomas only changes the subject. “The Challenger is headed to Dorvan V as we speak. The crew will be there for a three-month mission.”

“That’s James’ ship, yes?” 

Tomas only nods.

Miranda puts down the comb. She turns to Tomas with sharp, inquisitive eyes. “You seem worried,” she says.

Worried was putting it lightly.

Though Tomas had never been accustomed to the dread of futility, frustration over the details of this mission had plagued him with worries regarding its long-term efficacy. Neither the Federation President nor Cardassia’s Castellan would acquiese to terms that involved acknowledging the planet’s full sovereignity, for as long as the Maquis continued to exist. The current version of the proposal, in turn, appeared to have the structure of a mere aid mission. One that, were scarcity purely the issue that hounded the planet’s peoples—as he and James had previously exchanged barbs over—would have only addressed superficial needs. Tomas did not subscribe to a heuristic that favored expected utility, but the options laid out on the table had been to accept different unsatisfactory combinations of trade-offs, or to let the whole thing go. Either way, New Providence would be left to the mercy of the Cardassian military, which meant that the Maquis would continue their indiscriminate raids of any sort of vessel warping through the DMZ. 

During their last few hours together, James had become the unfortunate victim of his incessant rambling. He’d launched into a mostly dry and incoherent lament on the insufficient criterion of prospect theory given the impasse they’ve been cornered into, the inevitable turmoil to come from the Federation’s continued association with a government that shared its enemies’ values, and his exaggerated despair at the thought of James becoming a casualty of the Obsidian Order’s many attempts to trounce the Maquis.

Immediately after suffering Tomas’ childlike babbling, James had launched into an enthusiastic response of his own. While Tomas had never considered their trysts to be lacking in passion, the other times they’d lain together had seemed chaste in comparison. As they both marveled the luminous shade of green his skin had turned from the strain of their efforts, Tomas had chided his lover for holding back on him, previously. James, the incorrigible tease, dangled the prospect of more exuberant love-making upon his return. The kind that would put Pon-Farr to shame, he’d said. Lacking the words for any suitable rejoinder, Tomas had elected to shut him up with the deft slide of a tongue to the roof of that impertinent mouth.

Standing over him at the steps up the docking jetty, James had leaned close and called him t’hy’la.

Suddenly, Tomas feels all too conscious of the deep patches of green left all over his skin.

“Only for illogical reasons,” he answers.

Wordlessly, Miranda walks over to the replicator, returning with two steaming cups of Tarkalean tea. Sensing the need for a worthy distraction, she regales him with the story of a spouse from one of her symbiont’s previous hosts coming to visit the station, enthusing about how she’d nearly considered running away with the woman who’d once been her husband, half a century ago.

 

* * *

 

The Maquis thought that the Tzenkethi freighters had gotten away from their birds. 

Blue Squad’s helm had swiftly recalculated parallax, plotting an engagement from the aft, but found no ships once they’d gotten there. As if either the fleet had been fitted with a cloaking device, or they’d somehow completely missed their mark. Scott, likely sensing that some other ploy was afoot, had ordered every squad’s vessels to lock into an attack formation. Then, their sensors at the border alerted them of twelve unidentifiable ships entering the DMZ, unscheduled. Fifteen minutes away from contact.

Realizing the jig was up, James had confessed to being the raid’s saboteur.

The plan was for this operation to decimate the Maquis’ numbers. Instead, James had joined Scott’s crew to deliberately lead them off-course. Scott—torn between the gratitude he felt he’d owed for having been spared from a merciless ambush and his disappointment that the man they’d grown to trust had planned to lead them to their deaths—delayed the declaration of any sentence until every single ship could confirm its safe retreat back to New Providence airspace.

It was how he found himself in the brig, wondering if he’d at least be allowed the mercy of one subspace dispatch before his inevitable execution. Scott had admitted that he did not feel as strongly about the Prophets as Bajora are expected to. Meaning, on the downside he would not be praying for any intercession on his behalf, but that the upside was that James could expect a fair trial back on Nassau, to be judged by its people rather than the righteous fury of a Kai. 

As far as he’s aware, the Maquis do not hang their captives. Not that James had ever met any living captives, in the first place.

Growing up, he’d never allowed himself to weep in the face of Vulcan’s indifference. If they do grant him at the very least the opportunity to apologize to Tomas, he expects that could be a first.

His second visitor is Guthrie, who stomps into the brig possessed of an intensity and weariness that gave her the appearance of being aged yet childlike all at once. Seventeen, already leaping into brutal skirmishes.

“Un-fucking-believable,” she shouts. “You had all of us think you were on our side. We were all going to die! You fucking… you absolute fucking—!” 

She lets out a frustrated breath and punches at the barrier. 

I would never have allowed the ambush to happen, he wants to say. _I took on this mission to ensure that you all lived._ He says nothing, letting her yell and punch at the barrier to her satisfaction.

“Tell me, when you said that the Federation and Cardassia would eventually be forced to leave us alone, was that a lie too?” She hisses. 

He’d told them about the limits of the proposal. He’d made it clear that the only way they could ever drive the Cardassian military away was through constant intimidation. He’d help them successfully raid arms supply freighters without engaging in warfare, emphasizing the necessity of a stronger defense.

He’d done all of that so that there would be no questions asked once he laid out the plan for this one score.

It only took him three months to fully understand that the Maquis could win their independence. That it was not as impossible as it had seemed, from the outside. They had the means to resist. It would be brutal, but it could be done.

Guthrie punches the barrier again. “Tell me!” 

Wild eyes. Weary shoulders. Far too young to be here, in this mess. 

“No, it wasn’t,” James says. 

The girl breathes. Her whole body seems to sag.

“Just so you know, the whole hanging thing? We don’t actually do that,” she says. Her face seems to soften, eyes large and glistening with tears that do not fall.

As she stomps out, she seems to funnel out all the air from the brig, leaving James alone with the purity of his despair.

Eventually, his deception will be made known to all of Starfleet. He does not expect Tomas to forgive him. He does not expect to ever set foot on Federation soil again.

He wonders if Vulcan would ever make the exception for him, again.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **New Star Trek terms in this chapter:**
> 
>   * Cardassian ranks: Castellan is sort of like the Prime Minister of their centralized government. Legates are Admirals and Guls are Captains.
>   * Obsidian Order: The Cardassian government’s black ops division. (Garak, DS9’s resident Cardassian spy, probably has loud opinions on art because he was once the equivalent of a CIA agent.)
>   * Pon-Farr: As established in the TOS episode “Amok Time,” Vulcans only mate once every seven years. The level of intensity is best described as “fuck or die.”
>   * T’hy’la: An apocryphal Vulcan term of endearment coined by Gene Roddenberry, meaning “friend” or “lover.”
>   * Kai: A Bajoran religious figure usually capable of greatly influencing governance on Bajor.
> 

> 
> **Other notes:**
> 
>   * The lines _”You almost make me believe in luck” / “You almost make me believe in miracles”_ are from an exchange between Kirk and Spock in the TOS episode “A Taste of Armageddon.”
>   * I don’t hate Starfleet or the Federation, despite what this fic seems to put out! I do, however, see it as the American liberal’s imperfect vision of the end of history. So, a healthy skepticism. Anyway do not expect this fanfic to completely reflect the author’s politics or views regarding fake future interstellar alliances.
>   * Star Trek has never been clear about duties and qualifications, but Riker often heads the away missions on TNG, and on DS9 Worf has commanded The Defiant in Sisko’s stead. Plus, Sisko started out on DS9 as a Commander. So James being a Lt. Cmdr. should give him the qualifications to lead that sort of mission.
>   * The two Trill hosts resuming an affair from several lifetimes ago is the A-plot of the DS9 episode “Rejoined.”
> 



	4. Would to god these blessed calms would last

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With hope and fear, and were god willing.

From under the crush of electronic transmissions bounding out the subspace relays dotting DS9, a lone dispatch slips out unmarked, unverified, unmonitored. It sprays into fragments that scramble and pulse outward, exiting territorial borders quietly, then charging into the turbulent thrashing of heat and particulate matter from a wreckage of unknowable nature—one doomed to be denied or disputed by records on either side of the border, in the years to come. As the dispatch flies to its destination on Dorvan V, it halts momentarily, impeded by imperceptible fragments of debris orbiting a few thousand kilometers above the planet’s atmosphere.

From the single grid-lined window of his makeshift holding cell, James McGraw watches the USS Challenger fly out, bound for the badlands back to the station by order of Central Command, leaving him in the Maquis outpost to await his sentence. The conditions of isolation are not unfamiliar to him, yet the press of dread rises all the same, shrinking already close quarters into a lightless, airless keep. Recalling the years spent in the featureless sands of a red, moonless planet, he wills a rising swell of nerves into a single point. His emotions are confined, crushed, compressed under the spring coil of his mental composure.

When the Maquis queen enters his quarters with a compact cylindrical device, James instinctively stands to attention, comportment even-keeled, allowing no emotion to intrude. The device blinks and beeps, a shrill sonic intrusion cutting through the silence of the room. The device is set onto a table, twisted open, fanning out into a flat bowl.

For a moment the beeping stops.

The queen gestures to the chair behind James. As he drops into the seat, one click to the transponder and a dispatch plays out, sound crackling through the old device’s shuttering speakers, his dread pulsates, threatening to bulge into nausea. As the audio plays, James settles his knuckles on the seat, reining in his dudgeon.

They listen to a recording of a private conversation. A man who introduces himself as a Gul from the Cardassian infantry presents his recommendations to Starfleet's Central Command, in light of recent events. The Gul describes details of an ambush involving a Federation ship en route to Cardassia Prime, carrying Federation citizens of note, along with few civilians. The man suggests the likelihood of political motive after cursory investigation, claiming that according to survivors, the attack was conducted by none other than the Maquis. He requests the arrangement of ablockade to bar all civilian and supply vessels from passing through the Demilitarized Zone. The message ends with recommendations from the Cardassian government: inquiry of all Starfleet personnel and Federation citizens, detainment of suspected Maquis sympathizers, the prohibition of all civilian travel through or near the Demilitarized Zone.

The queen sets her fingers over the device “We could not have conducted this attack, as you know,” she says.

Uselessly, James responds, “no, you couldn’t have.”

“I can only suspect that this will lead to even more attacks from the Cardassian military. Perhaps some from Starfleet as well. Attacks legitimized by necessity, given evidence of aggression. Evidence that could not possibly be authentic.”

The queen twists the device shut, keeping her measured gaze to James. She pulls up a chair and slowly settles into it. For a moment, neither speak, holding their gaze eye-to-eye.

“This message did not come from our people,” the queen says. “That much, we’ve confirmed.”

James turns his head to look out of the small grid-lined window. No sight of his ship, long gone from the DMZ, forced out by the Maquis. In four days, the Challenger will have docked into DS9. “It might have come from one of mine,” he says.

The queen steeples her fingers, saying nothing, gesturing for James to continue.

“Let me send out a message,” he offers, as evenly as he can manage. “There are people in the Federation who share your vision for this planet. There is someone who can and will help you challenge whatever evidence they have against the Maquis.”

Between them, the device’s transponder blinks green. Its noise seems to come from far away, a faint noise shrinking away into nothing, as if caught in the vacuum of space. The queen steps closer, pressing a hand to James’ earlobe, measuring his pagh. A Bajoran custom, one that he understands if in the abstract, despite disbelieving its purpose. It is impossible to assess the strength of one’s character in this manner. He stills for it anyway.

The queen’s eyes dart from the device, to James, then back again. “Make your call,” she says, sliding the cylinder across the table. As she walks away she says, to James and to anybody else who might be listening, “may the Prophets guide us all.”

The sky has dimmed by the transponder frequency code is rerouted. No subspace marker, no identifying codes, nothing to go by other than the station’s location and the nature of the code. Cardassian standards, dispatched from DS9.

James cannot be certain where it came from, and who he might be sending their signal out to.

He cannot be certain but he can hope.

With the planet lacking its own relays, it might take two days for the message to reach the station. Another two days for a response. If swift action were taken by either Starfleet or Cardassia, the Maquis could be engaged in warfare before either of them can stop it.

He launches a response.

Above the planet, a paper thin line of debris hurtles downward, forming a barely perceptible ring of fragments forever falling into orbit without ever touching ground.

 

* * *

 

Tomas opens his PADD to see what the day would hold.

The days blurred and thrummed with the low-frequency dullness of bureaucratic conventions and the swift beat of urgent demands. There was the circuitous negotiations and concessions involved with securing support amongst the many sovereignties allied with the United Federation, the minutiae of resource-allocation given the need to address reparations for the Bajoran home planet, the matter of the looming threat of war with another interstellar superpower. And now, a new complication had been thrown into the inexhaustible deluge.

Miranda’s Cardassian friend had intimated knowledge of some invisible element steering the course of this proposal. Something that threaded the Federation’s relationship with Cardassia to the rise of a ruthless  _pro tempore_ government on Bajor during the planet’s post-occupation restoration efforts, to various other developments simultaneously unfolding within the Klingon Empire, Vulcan, Earth, among others. A grand tapestry of unseen mysteries, the Cardassian hissed, with a vulgar sort of thrill. Conspiracy at the galactic scale.

Absurd.

Yet, possible.

Infinitesimally so.

He would be unwise to ignore any threats.

Now, here, sluiced into the PADD: proof. Allegedly.

And it was encrypted. And unusually stubborn.

Any attempts to unlock the data with decryption keys from Cardassian, Vulcan, Trill, Breen, Romulan,  Federation standards had proven futile. After numerous trips for Tarkalean tea from the replicator across the room, he finds he is at a loss. There was a sensible solution, yet the Cardassian—who’d been firm about wanting no part in this particular matter—had drawn the line here. One piece of information. He'd insisted with an edge that concealed a threatening air under the heavy glaze of mannered decorum. Simply asking the man to decrypt the packet is out of the question.

Frustration pushes Tomas out of his quarters, down the winding habitat halls and into the swift pull of the turbolift, carrying him into the low lights and tireless enthusiasm of the central promenade. He passes by the rows of merchants, the travelers milling outside the Replimat, and stops at the spot where he’d first met James. Instinctively he identifies, sequesters, and represses the pull of yearning that leaps from the depths of his tightly-wound control.

It had only been months.

He hopes James is faring better than he is.

He walks further down, passing by the ports funneling in new arrivals. Ridiculously, exhaustedly, frustratedly, his thoughts are plagued by despair. Extended periods of exposure to indifferent bureaucrats and the constantly changing faces of people passing through a spaceport had sharpened an acute sense of isolation in him. From the rigors of Vulcan to rising up the ranks of the Federation, in bright blurs of spaceports and the wearisome axes of dignitaries.

Ahead, the trimmed columns and candles that frame the Bajoran chapel rear up. Hewn stone and fabric banners flank the narrow archway, the delicate intricacy of their craft inversely proclaiming the robustness of faith among the people who’d once been on this station as captives. Conviction in something that rarely revealed itself in logic, especially among the bereft and beaten down, is something Tomas understands on a conceptual level. The need for solidarity and a secure sense of identity gave religion its utility for the Bajora. And yet that same sweep of faith is just as easily leveraged in recovery, through the opportunistic rise of religious leaders campaigning to overthrow the provisional government.

That most of the Maquis are Bajora should perhaps be no surprise.

Without another thought, he passes through the chapel’s fabric banners. Inside, the warmth of candles lining the walls, the looming scale of the floating dais, the sea of believers kneeling on the carpet, with heads bowed in solemn prayer. Amongst the crowd he spots the captain of the Xhosa freighter, she and her crew occupying a full row. A mix of Human, Klingon, Orion, and other civilians joining in the prayer. It almost feels shamefully voyeuristic, to observe the customs of a people bound by something transcending his narrow understanding of a strange and ever-expanding universe, and be seized by a nameless longing. He could not, instinctively, embrace the idea of surrendering to invisible Prophets, to be certain in the security of their succor.

From behind, he hears a throat clear loudly, calling his attention.

“Live long and prosper,” a passing Vedek greets.

Tomas raises a hand, fingers forking into the appropriate salute. _Health and long life_ , he thinks.

He stays for the rites. A celebrant recounts the story of a war that starts with a river, and the people split on either side. The river bore witness to decades of struggle and invasion, all for control of that vital strip of water. In the end, the Prophets call a storm to ravage its people, the river swelling into floods that overwhelm the temples, tenements, farmlands and people that flank it. In the end, those who remain are compelled by circumstance to make peace with each other, if they are to survive. And lo, the Prophets reappeared.

It is a grim tale, closed with a buoyant chanting that suffuses the room. He turns his head and spots the Xhosa crew clapping and singing along. Tomas remains motionless, observing the outpour of irrepressible zest from his corner in silence. Yet in the archipelagic scatter of his thoughts, he senses the rise of a lone island, leaping to rejoice.

He ought to write to James about this.

He can already imagine the incredulous response. The playful, footsure, accommodating dissent, that challenged and fueled and transformed.

_You believe that the wormhole aliens are gods, now?_  James would say.

_Not entirely_ , he’d confess. _But the rites did remind me of something else._

They’d, both of them, reached into some fissure of the soul, the deepest part and purest grain of it, to reshape whatever it is that comes with life into something truer, more whole. More known. The closest he has to that mysterious unmaking most evangelists claim to be exclusively a quality of the divine.

_One more month._

Anticipation pulses by minute fractions, down the back of his neck to the soles of his feet.

Tomas turns his gaze from the dais and walks away, feet pushed along by a sudden urgency. There’s a packet in need of decryption. Work to be done, still.

 

* * *

 

Guthrie visits the cell, tossing a paper bag with hasperat rolls onto the bed. She pulls up a chair in reverse, legs swinging over the seat, arms folded over the backrest. Waching James with curious eyes, she sits sprawled over the chair possessed of a freedom from self-censure that makes James all the more conscious of his own uptight posture. The stiff straightness of his back follows the trend of tensing up to uncomfortable levels of formality, the further he finds himself in the depths of personal misery.

The door is left open a crack. He can hear the faint shimmer of Bajoran mandolins, the strident chorus of people singing a cheerful tune. The words are in a Human language, clipped and stilted on the inhabitants’ mixed tongues.

_Yo no soy marinero, soy capitán!_

James breaks off a roll and passes the bag over. “A Spanish song?”

“Afro-Latino. Rackham said it was about independence. Or buccaneers. Or both. Can’t remember.”

Outside, the pluck and shimmer of strings are drowned by the sound of rhythmic clapping. The rise of dissonant voices throw the refrain off-key. In the room, James merely observes the roll, mentally itemizing its contents.

One foot planted on the seat, leaning over in a manner meant to suggest intimidation, if not for her size. The girl tilts her head inquiringly, watching James with narrowed eyes. 

“I believe you, just so you know,” Guthrie says. The flat sole of her boots dig into the woven wood. “The thing about the Federation and Cardassia eventually leaving us alone. And that you’ll personally see to that.”

The girl has no reason to believe he’s telling the truth.

James says nothing, feeling somewhat at a loss. He smiles at her in wordless gratitude, the expression coming easily despite its foreignness to him.

“Also I’m not exactly surprised that Starfleet would put the demands of an alliance before their own people.”

Through its systems and values, the Federation collapses in its own contradictions—materially, its people may want for nothing, provided they align with and serve the demands of its eternal enterprise. Ostensibly benevolent assimilation, yet assimilation still. And to present even the mildest act of resistance, as his assignment proved, was fatal.

Outside, the crowd’s singing carries on. The stomping of feet, the clapping of hands, the thrill and fall of mandolins begin to swell. Guthrie settles more comfortably into the seat, beginning to pick at her food. Barely an adult and already flung out to the frontier, amongst other castoffs. To a place that, despite its temperate air and irrepressible verve, eternally fell under the pall cast of the Cardassian Union.

“Is that why you joined the Maquis?” James asks.

“No, not exactly. My father had… expectations. I was not exactly up to snuff. Always eager to impress. Took a calculated risk on a training mission; turned out I was bad at math.” Guthrie responds. Then, she shrugs. “It was this or the penal colony.”

_Not up to snuff_. The echoes of Vulcan seemed to stretch to the farthest reaches of the outer worlds. He could defer all personal satisfaction, he could defer weakness, he could defer the insistent clamor of his own conviction, all in the service of meeting the standard. 

James leans back against the wall, fatigue and the tendrils of ease sinking in and hauling away the carefully controlled comportment, its three-month mission nearly winding down.

“We can expect a response to our dispatch soon,” he says. “As soon as the next hour.”

They both turn to watch the faintest hint of light blaze from the small window. From the other side, the music carries on.

The chorus soars.

Under her breath, Guthrie hums along.

_Por ti seré, por ti seré, por ti seré…_

 

* * *

 

A universal directive funnels into multiple absurd extrapolations, outward into innumerable points—collecting, aggregating, assessing, looping. In the manner of a trench giving way to a surge of floodwater, endless strings of correspondences, automated action logs, subspace probe scans and com-net transmissions burst out of the data packet. Minuscule grains turning and folding into a current of their unison, queued and catalogued and locked into a loop.

A great big eye, a looming claw, severe, precise, and unseen, coming down to set events in motion. It swiped away anticipated threats, orchestrated the linkage of partnerships and crews and organizations, ranked individuals by utility and paved inroads according to prospects. It automated the production and reproduction of knowledge.

It calculated the advantages of securing an alliance with Cardassia through presenting the alternatives, in Federation casualties. It positioned Bajor’s provisional government as a threat to Federation expansion and presented opportunities to advance its political opposition. It declared the Maquis a threat to extinguish by any means. It proposed the Federation’s surrender to the rising threat, balancing the costs of resistance against tolerance in forecasted casualties.

Surveillance and control, all in the service of the needs of the many. Hidden away under a forgettable name, as if it were merely one of Starfleet’s drier and inert appendages.

The stakes become clear.

Tomas strides into the tailor’s shop, weaving through the heaped racks and hanging drapes, in a single-minded hunt for his Cardassian informant. He finds the man at the end of the workroom, absorbed in his inspection of a glossy sheet of I’danian silk spread over a tilted crafting table.

“Mister Garak,” Tomas nearly yells, unable to modulate his tone. He drops his PADD on the fabric, blocking out the tailor’s cutting tools. “What the hell is Section 31?”

Unfazed, the Cardassian sets his tools aside, double eyelids blinking out of sync as his face scrunches into an amiable smile, bowing deferently to unwelcome company.

“Ah, Minister. How lovely of you to grace my humble atelier, and twice in one week!” Garak says, rising up and gesticulating toward the door with a mannered enthusiasm. “As for your inquiry, I assure you, I have never heard of… whatever that may be. Now, if you'll excuse me, I’m afraid you’ve failed to secure an appointment. As it so happens, my day is unfortunately full.”

Tomas is in no mood for spy games. He has no patience for prevarication. Taking his umbrage out on the fabric, he grips the sides of the table to pull at the fine material, sliding the Cardassian a nudge closer as he leans over, eye-to-eye and nearly nose-to-nose. 

“The information from your packet suggests that the Federation has already decided that to eliminate the refugees in the Demilitarized Zone is in its best interests, to secure its alliance with Cardassia.”

The Cardassian's eye-ridges knit as his mouth curves upward. caught between scorn and decorum. He looks up at Tomas, then frowns down at the screen, and back up again. “I’m afraid every word you’ve just uttered is absolute nonsense to me. After all, I am but a plain and simple tailor!”

“Mister Garak—”

“Perhaps if you addressed the matter to Central Command?”

“—if this information is true, this will be genocide. By my people just as well as yours. How much more can Cardassia’s conscience tolerate?”

Double eyelids blink out of sync. The Cardassian holds his gaze, his silence, and his stillness. Then, he sighs, rising up from the table, pacing to the back of the room and ducking behind a thick ochre curtain. For a moment, Tomas has only the company of the styled and unfinished frocks on display. He peers at the fabric on the table, idly smoothing it down.

A minute passes, and the tailor emerges from the curtain bearing an isolinear data-rod in one hand. “I’m afraid informing your allies in the Federation government or in Starfleet will only put you in an even more precarious position,” he tailor says. “But the information in here should steer you towards the right direction.”

Without another word, he hands the data-rod over.

The Cardassian makes a show of having forgotten a cutting implement, disappearing behind the heavy curtain once more.

 

* * *

 

By morning, a civilian shuttle hails the Nassau outpost, requesting for a beam-down. The Maquis, approving the signal, surround the landing point with phasers trained and charged. Their disquiet, heightened by the airless day, the electronic voice cracking from the shuttle’s comms to their receivers, and the shuttle’s Federation insignia, further stirs once the lone passenger makes their request.

James, enmeshed in the details of the conversation between the Cardassian Gul and Command—replayed countless times in the cell, if only to fill the silence—startles when an urgent knock comes from the door.

The Maquis at his door say nothing, only motioning for him to get up, but he sees their agitation in knit brows and tightened jaws. They lead him down quiet lees of untouched greenery at the edge of town, down underground corridors fitted with armor and arms and stacked food tins, lined with airtight hermetically sealed vaults.

Two of the Maquis break off at a fork. The three that remain take James to a room at the end of one corridor and instruct him to wait. In the large, airless concrete space, with its steel-enforced ceiling, the rolled-up sleeping mats lining the floor, stacks upon stacks of vacuum-sealed crates, the lights begin to flicker. Scuffs pock and scar the floor, all concrete dusted with a layer of soil and sand from the surface. There’s a replicator packed at the end of the space that looks relatively new.

As two of the Maquis inspect the room and check the lights, James waits near the entryway, standing still, arms crossed, touching nothing.

Minutes later, Scott comes in, signaling for the guard to leave the room.

“Five hours ago, a Federation shuttle hailed and requested to land. The sole passenger requested to speak with you urgently,” the Bajoran says, voice measured and clipped. Quiet, with an oversuspicious control. “They spoke of the intercepted message sent this week.”

He signals one of the men outside.

The next seconds stretch and strain as they pass. Screwing down the upwelling flow of his irrational unease, James plants his feet firmly on the floor, hands clasped tightly behind, holding his gaze to the doorway.

Two of the Maquis lead their visitor inside, concealed by a cloak and blindfold, which they carefully remove, revealing spotted skin, large brown eyes, wide and haunted.

Miranda stares at James, opening her mouth to speak. She breathes, shakes her head, and says nothing.

James does not move, keeping still even as the floor begins to rock, vertiginous, as if at sea. “You were the one who sent the message?” He asks.

“I had help from a friend,” Miranda answers.

She turns to Scott and the rest of the Maquis, nodding once. The guards leave, while Scott walks to the corner and watches.

“Tell him what you have told us,” he says.

Miranda looks around at the shelter, then keeps her gaze to James, eye-to-eye, widened and watery. Unblinking. Such eyes.

“Two weeks ago Tomas acquired information that pointed him to Betazed. He explained that he could not risk sharing any details, only that it had been urgent. And that, if he could not make it back before your ship arrived on the station, to tell you…” She breathes out an uneasy laugh. “To tell you to not be too concerned.”

“He and several others took the swiftest route to Betazed. Along the badlands. Near Maquis territory.”

James grinds the soles of his boots down on the worn floor. He curls his hands into fists to quell their trembling.

“The information I have, including the intercepted message, comes from an informant who is… reluctant to have any further involvement.”

Miranda steps closer. The next words she utters seem to stretch and echo through the great, empty, airtight space.

“There has been no announcement over public lines yet, but Starfleet and the Cardassian military plan to declare a war on the Maquis for bombing civilian ships flying near their known outposts in a targeted attack. Casualties are listed in the hundreds, including notable representatives of the Federation.”

As Miranda comes even closer, James looks away, unable to meet her eyes.

“What are you saying?” He says.

Two spotted hands reach up for his, clutching tightly.

“Miranda, what the hell are you saying?”

Miranda pulls him closer. She buries her face in his shoulder.

“I’m so sorry,” she says, all too quietly.

 

* * *

 

Months ago, on a spinning starbase at the edge of space. The present day, inside a cell hidden in the Maquis outpost, on the tide of a dream.

James paces in the long corridors of the habitat ring, exhausted, aggrieved, shaken by Hennessy’s latest orders. _With or without your involvement_ , the admiral had said. Weighing his few practical options, working away the smothering choke of kanar, of frustration, of guilt, he makes his way to a particular entryway. Quarters he has had access to for months now, yet refuses to enter unannounced, or as he pleases.

So he stands there uselessly, belayed by conflicting voices in his head. As his hand reaches for the buzzer, he becomes conscious of the late hour, and turns away.

He makes it a few meters out before hearing the door slide open. When he turns around, he finds Tomas standing on the threshold, drowned in a long and heavy robe, a new Human book tucked under one arm, watching him with barefaced concern. Almost shameless on a Vulcan face.

Without having to ask, Tomas answers his obvious question. “You were stomping around quite loudly.”

James opens his mouth, but before he can recite his well-practiced apologies, Tomas nods for him to come inside, disappearing into the room. James follows, feet treading lightly back up the corridor, with intention.

Once the door slides shut behind him, he looks around the room, standing obliquely across Tomas, deliberately avoiding his gaze. As James stays there, by the door, taking up air and letting the seconds waste away, Tomas walks over slowly, the careful soundlessness of his steps marred by the sound of fabric dragging across the polished floor. When he stops, they are close enough that James has to tilt his head up to look him in the eye.

Apropos of nothing, James says, “you are aware that I would do anything for you, yes?”

“Somehow I find that inadvisable,” Tomas says, amused and charmed and mostly worried.

A little incredulous, a little insulted, James insists, “this is a serious matter.”

“You are slurring your words, my dear.”

Unable to riposte with any defense that would not trivialize his sincerity further, James takes both their hands, lining them up palm-to-palm, Vulcan to Human. He leads them to the sides of his face, fingers pressed to his temples, looking at his lover with all the conviction and will he can bring to bear.

Tomas only smiles at James, sliding his hands down to rest on shoulders stiff with dread, pressing a soft kiss to his forehead.

He does not need to read his mind to know him.

Tomas sees him clearly and fully. And that is enough.

James allows himself to be pulled deeper into the room, carefully stripped of the outer layer of his uniform, led to the bed he’d shared most nights, held tenderly and silently, wrapped in the warmth of loving arms, buoyed by the forward turn of the station, listening to nothing but the clockwork beat of their hearts, hoping and fearing for a future he’d never before given himself the luxury to consider.

In the dark, under blades of soft light, in the corner of his cell, plagued by a wretchedness and despair he feels too fatigued to repress, James directs his thoughts outward, through New Providence, past the badlands, the Challenger, DS9, up the wormhole, to the Prophets.

If they're real. If they're listening. If they're capable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **New Star Trek terms in this chapter:**
> 
>   * Bajoran culture and religion: Measuring your pagh is done via pulling the earlobe, like sensing your aura or something close to that. Vedeks are like ordained ministers. In DS9, the aftermath of Bajor’s post-occupation did create the opportunity for questionable religious leaders to influence their provisional government, but in this story there is some slight exaggeration. Hasperat is like a burrito.
>   * Section 31: Starfleet’s black ops division. As the Obsidian Order is to Cardassia, Section 31 exists as the Federation’s CIA equivalent—introduced in DS9 but are featured more prominently in Star Trek: Into Darkness and DIS, especially in its second season.
>   * Vulcan abilities: Vulcans have a limited mind-reading capacity. (As do Betazoids, which will play out at some point in later chapters.)
> 

> 
> **Other notes:**
> 
>   * There isn’t actually any word of a hierarchy amongst the Maquis, but as this is a Black Sails story first and a Star Trek story second, in this universe they have a queen.
>   * Eleanor’s backstory is basically a fusion of herself with Tom Paris of VOY.
>   * The song the Nassau inhabitants are singing is La Bamba. Let’s assume that back in town, a wedding reception of mixed Afro-Latino and Bajoran tradition was being celebrated.
>   * Garak will mark the first and last major involvement of a Star Trek character.
>   * A lot of what’s in here include’s a mix of DIS’s Section 31 surveillance state storyline and the reductive conclusion reached by the genetic augments in DS9’s “Statistical Probabilities,” plus some elements from DS9’s “In the Pale Moonlight.”
>   * I hope I haven’t lost any non-Star Trek fans yet because it only gets more bonkers from here.
> 



End file.
